Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 1621 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Procurement Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
On the importance of procurement post EU exit, it has been recognised by everybody that there had to be legislation put in place. In January 2022, the UK and devolved Governments published the common framework on procurement, which this committee recognised was a practical and commonsense way forward. However, the Scottish Government notes in its LCM that it has not been able to fully address its concerns with the Procurement Bill. How has the common framework been operating in practice? Everybody was looking to that as being the practical means by which there could be that sensible, commonsense co-operation.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Procurement Bill
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Do you think that this is more accidental mission creep as opposed to deliberate power grab? I am trying to be generous here. There are degrees of disagreement with LCMs. The Infrastructure Bank Bill looks more straightforward, but this one is so important because it is about procurement and we need to get it right. Is there something that you can try to resolve at ministerial level to get us back on track with the common framework agreement?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
There is an important message there. There is value in having something that provides a sustainable sector for individuals in the workforce—which has a knock-on effect on retention, which has a cost value itself—and that provides investment in growth instead of addressing just the short-term, immediate issues around energy costs. If there were Barnett consequentials—it is not obvious that there will be—in the business sector area, would business rates be your priority?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
I turn to Lloyd Austin. We know that, whether we are talking about UK Government or Scottish Government bills, there will be a lack of detail until regulations are granted. However, concerns have been expressed by English NGOs about what might happen. We have a new Government at the UK level, one of the first announcements of which was that, as of Monday, businesses with fewer than 500 employees will be exempt from reporting requirements and other regulations. It also said:
“The changed threshold will apply ... to all new regulations under development as well as those under current and future review, including retained EU laws.”
The UK Government is saying that there will be non-regression as far as environmental law is concerned. If the UK Government were to clarify that non-regression will apply in this context, that would give an early indication that non-regression will stand. Do you share that view?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Early clarification by the UK Government of what it announced on Monday would at least give us some certainty about what might or might not happen.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
So, that comes back to consent rather than consultation.
David Melhuish, you talked about the importance of enabling infrastructure investments and developments. I am also interested in whether, if the environmental outcome report is in the jurisdiction of the secretary of state, with a duty only to consult with the devolved Administration, that will enable or hinder developments. We actually want to make things happen, but there is a question of the speed of decision making, and the issue is whether those decisions are better made more locally. However, land-based decisions would quite clearly be more devolved, unless they involved a big energy project such as a nuclear facility, for example.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
David, what are your views on the interaction between the bill, the LCM on which we are looking at, and the draft NPF4?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
I am trying to understand the matter from a practical point of view. What will it mean for projects, in particular? I turn to Robbie Calvert for an answer next. Although there are some concerns about the provisions on environmental outcomes reports, you can see a sense in them from a policy point of view. However, who would make the decision on large onshore—or even, potentially, offshore—developments that environmental assessment has shown need some kind of mitigation when that mitigation might not be able to happen on a granular, small scale but will happen elsewhere? Under the bill, would a Scottish minister or the secretary of state decide where the mitigation for the environmental outcome would take place? That is a practical situation that could happen.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
But you would be reliant on the applicant as opposed to the approvals database.
On the volume of work, what discussions has the Scottish Government had with the UK Government about how it ensures that the HSE is sufficiently resourced to carry out its functions in this area effectively and to reduce delays in processing authorisations under the GB biocidal product regulatory regime?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Fiona Hyslop
Good morning. I am interested in policy coherence. Environmental and planning legislation is devolved. I will come to Robbie Calvert first. How might part 5 of the bill impact on the fourth national planning framework?
